Raunchy and irreverent, Richard "Cheech" Marin
and Tommy Chong captured the spirit of the 70s counterculture with an authenticity that
couldn't be denied. Keep watching to discover the untold truth
of this iconic duo. Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin was born on
July 13, 1946, in South Central Los Angeles. His father Oscar was an officer with the LAPD,
while his mother Elsa worked as a secretary. He received the nickname "Cheech" from an
uncle who joked that baby Richard looked like a fried pork rind, "chicharrón" in Spanish. While still a child, Marin moved with his
parents to the suburb of Granada Hills, where he attended a Catholic high school. He had musical aspirations and performed in
bands with his friends. He was a straight-A student, but he also had
a reputation as a class clown, which frequently landed him in hot water. After high school, Marin attended California
State University at Northridge, where he tried marijuana for the first time. Upon taking his first puff, the formerly straightlaced
Marin was transformed. Dismissing the propaganda that adults had
fed him about the drug, he mused, "What else have they been lying to me about?" Marin also became active in the anti-war and
draft resistance movements while in college. With draft resisters being imprisoned, he
escaped to Canada with the help of his pottery teacher. He then worked as an apprentice to a famous
potter and settled down to rustic life in a secluded log cabin in the Canadian wilderness. Thomas Chong was born on May 24, 1938 to dad
Stanley, a Chinese immigrant who worked as a truck driver, and mom Lorna Jean, a Canadian
waitress. He grew up in Calgary, Alberta as the product
of an interracial marriage, learning hard lessons about racism from an early age. In a 2020 interview with The Guardian, he
opened up about his childhood in his conservative hometown. While recalling his exclusion from a friend's
birthday party, he noted, "I just looked out of the window of the second
story and could see my friends gathering around the fire. I was uninvited cause the girl's father was
worried she might end up with a colored guy or Chinese guy." At the age of 16, Chong dropped out of high
school to pursue a career in music. A talented guitarist, he landed a gig with
the Shades, a multiracial soul group out of Calgary. Changing their name to Little Daddy and the
Bachelors, the band moved to Vancouver, where they released a single and built a small following. They would reach their pinnacle when they
became known as Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers. Recommended to Berry Gordy by Diana Ross and
the Supremes, the band signed with Motown and recorded the top 40 hit "Does Your Mama
Know About Me?" Co-written by Chong and Bobby Taylor, the
touching ballad about an interracial couple peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100
and made it to the top five on the R&B charts. Chong was ultimately fired from his band,
so he pocketed a $5,000 severance check and made his way back to Vancouver. While on the road, his parents had converted
one of the nightspots he owned into the Shanghai Junk, Vancouver's first topless club. During his time with Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers,
Chong had been exposed to the comedy of Chicago's Second City. He found renewed purpose in improv, and the
Shanghai Junk was the perfect venue to hone his chops. Recruiting four topless dancers, a mime, and
a classical guitarist, he was going to reinvent burlesque for the hippie generation. Meanwhile, Cheech had migrated to Vancouver
and found work as a part-time writer for a local music magazine. His editor suggested that he meet Chong. The unconventional pair hit it off, and Cheech
was brought on as a writer. The duo's famous act came about by accident
when Chong and his new music group were scheduled to play their first show. To warm up the crowd beforehand, Cheech and
Chong came out to tell some jokes. The audience was doubled over with laughter
as one hilarious bit led into another. The act ultimately went on so long that there
was no time for the band to play. "We always approached comedy as music, had
a certain rhythm to it, you know, had a certain beat. You knew when to come in, when to not come
in." An energized Cheech and Chong eventually headed
for the comedy capital of the world, Los Angeles. They landed a gig at an open mic night, but
they struggled financially and were forced to move in with Chong's estranged wife, making
for a living situation that quickly became untenable. Circumstances became especially dire when
dwindling profits forced Chong's Vancouver nightclubs to close. Slowly, Cheech and Chong began performing
regular gigs at several Southern California clubs. After one disastrous show, they decided that
they just weren't connecting with their audience. They then mined the peace-love-and-dope ethos
of the era for material to develop their Pedro and Man characters. The audience response was immediate. The lovable stoners were comedy gold, which
led to sold-out shows, better venues, and a deal to make their first comedy record when
music producer Lou Adler caught their act. With $2,000, a tape recorder, and a rehearsal
space at A&M Records, Cheech and Chong crafted a comedy masterpiece that showcased their
wit, razor-sharp timing, and brilliant characterizations. Released in August 1971, their self-titled
debut album connected with critics and audiences alike, eventually peaking at number 28 on
the Billboard charts and earning the duo what would be the first of six Grammy nominations
for Best Comedy Recording. In 1978, Cheech and Chong set their sights
on conquering Hollywood with their first feature film, Up in Smoke. Although they originally conceived the movie
as a compilation of the best bits from their albums and live shows, they ultimately decided
to concentrate on their Pedro and Man characters. As Cheech explained to Rolling Stone in 2018, "It was a day in the life of [...] Pedro and
Man, which was much more interesting than a plot. It's, 'Two guys meet, they decide to form
a band together, but first they need a joint.' Therein lies your plot." With no formal script, Up in Smoke was largely
improvised. With Lou Adler at the helm, Cheech and Chong
had free reign to experiment. Nonetheless, the movie faced its share of
obstacles on its journey to the screen. Upon seeing a rough cut of the film, then-Paramount
president Michael Eisner pulled the plug on the picture. Adler bought the film back from the studio,
using his own money to complete it. After witnessing a test audience's reaction,
Eisner relented and Paramount bought the film back. Budgeted at just under $2 million, Up in Smoke
wound up making $20 million in its first month of release. Cheech and Chong followed Up in Smoke with
Cheech and Chong's Next Movie in 1980 and Nice Dreams in 1981. Sticking to their patented drug humor, the
new movies failed to live up to the high standard set by the first film, but they were still
filled with classic moments and turned a tidy profit against their relatively low budgets. The duo's next film, 1982's Things are Tough
All Over, featured Cheech and Chong temporarily putting down their giant spliffs for a more
story-oriented comedy. The following year, they returned with Still
Smokin, a loose collection of sketches and concert footage that finds the stoners in
Amsterdam for a film festival. Critics weren't kind, though fans stood by
the duo and their bawdy, juvenile humor. However, their next project, a radical departure
from their tried-and-true formula, left even the most loyal Cheech and Chong devotees wondering
what the pair were smoking. Cheech and Chong's The Corsican Brothers,
released in 1984, cast the comedy legends in a spoof of Alexandre Dumas' classic story
of brothers who can feel each other's physical pain. Reviews were generally dismissive, and audiences
took a pass as well. Failing to make back even half of its $10
million budget, The Corsican Brothers would be Cheech and Chong's final feature. In 1985, Cheech and Chong released the album
and home video Get Out of My Room. It would be their final release before an
acrimonious split. After nearly two decades, ego and creative
differences had soured their friendship. Although they'd soldiered on through their
differences, never allowing their animosity toward each other to affect their working
relationship, tensions between the two eventually became unbearable. During a conversation with Talks at Google
in 2017, Cheech noted, "There was always a contentious conversation
between Tommy and I because we were very strong personalities [...] but it was the irritant
that produced the pearl." He also insisted that the cause of the breakup
came down to Chong's inflated ego. "As we went along and got more success, Tommy
wanted to be everything. He wanted to be the director and the sole
writer." Chong's refusal to participate in the recording
of the song "Born in East L.A." was the final straw for Marin. Decades later, a humbler Tommy Chong agrees
with his partner's assessment of their breakup. During a radio appearance in 2020, he admitted, "I was really, really hurt, although it was
probably my fault why we broke up, you know. I got to be a bit of a megalomaniac when it
came to the movies because I ended up directing them. Once you become a director, your word's God,
and it's hard to lose that." "When he first went on his own, I felt really
betrayed." The song "Born in East L.A.," a parody of
Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," was credited to both Cheech and Chong, even
though it was actually by Cheech on his own. It was a huge hit, which led to Universal
executive Frank Price suggesting to Cheech that the story of a hapless Mexican-American
man's misadventures after being mistakenly deported would make for a great comedy feature. Cheech jumped at the opportunity, as he wrote,
directed, and starred in his first major project without Tommy Chong. Released in 1987, Born in East L.A. established
Cheech as a creative force on his own. With a knack for creating characters through
accents and dialects, the newly liberated Cheech became an in-demand voice actor, as
he would go on to show up in the likes of Oliver & Company and The Lion King. He also got the chance to show off a subtler
side of his comedic skills in the 1996 rom-com Tin Cup. By the late 90s, Cheech had put the drug-addled
comedy of his past mostly behind him. A new generation of fans would come to know
him not as the perennially wasted Pedro but as San Francisco special investigator Joe
Dominguez on the CBS cop show Nash Bridges. He also became a familiar face in director
Robert Rodriguez's action movies and kids' comedies. In 2012, Tommy Chong let the public in on
his health struggles by announcing that he'd been diagnosed with prostate cancer. A longtime advocate for marijuana legalization
and the medical use of cannabis, he turned to the plant as part of his treatment. "But now that I found out that the hemp oil
will help the prostate, hey, I'm back, man." Less than a year later, Chong announced that
with a combination of hash oil and dietary supplements, he had, quote, "kicked cancer's
ass." Unfortunately, he would face another health
setback in 2015, when he announced that although his prostate cancer was in remission, he was
now under treatment for rectal cancer. In typical Chong style, he took the news with
optimism and humor. He told Us Weekly, "I'm using cannabis like crazy now, more so
than ever before. I'm in treatment now [...] Either I get healed
or I don't. But either way, I'm going to make sure I get
a little edge off or put up." A Cheech and Chong reunion has been in the
works since 2003, with the iconic comedy duo planning a new movie. But when Chong served a prison sentence for
drug paraphernalia charges that year, it derailed their big screen plans. But eventually, to the delight of their legions
of fans, the duo finally re-teamed for a 2008 nationwide comedy tour. On stage together for the first time in 25
years, Cheech and Chong found that the old magic was as vibrant as ever. As Cheech told NPR, "When we came back last year to start doing
this, we didn't really even rehearse. We just kind of talked over what we were going
to do and then went on stage and did it. It was like we've been apart 25 seconds, not
25 years." Over a decade into their reunion, the pair
continue to pack theaters for their sold-out live shows. Even though Cheech is now in his seventies
and Chong is in his eighties, they're still smokin' in the 21st century. Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
stars are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the
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